Chapter 467: The Abyss Unleashed (4)
Gavid Lindman and V were about to make their move—but they stopped...
Because Gvardiol suddenly burst into laughter.
"Hahahahahahahahahaha!!"
He laughed so loudly it threatened to rupture their eardrums.
He was truly ecstatic—completely intoxicated by the moment.
"Beatrice was right!!!"
Gvardiol screamed under the puzzled gazes of Gavid and V, who couldn’t understand the reason for his sudden madness.
Until he shouted ..
"You really are the best... Frey Starlight!"
The moment Gvardiol said my name, every gaze turned toward me, leaving both sides in confusion.
Unlike Bloodmader and Snow ..who were visibly shaken by what the Ultras had shown .. I wore just one expression from beginning to end:
A smile.
A smile I hadn’t even realized I was making. A sadistic, terrifying smile that hid a monstrous thirst for blood.
"You’ve been trying to kill me with your stare this entire time, Lord Starlight. I wonder... do you hate me? Do you want to see me dead? Maybe I did something to upset you... But right now, I’m curious about something else entirely. Why, in the name of hell, are you smiling like that in a situation like this?"
Gvardiol asked, sounding genuinely intrigued.
I took my first step forward since arriving at the platform they’d built with their own hands.
"My apologies, gentlemen. There seems to be a misunderstanding here."
Step by step, I moved closer to Bloodmader and Snow.
"But before I clear that up... I have a question for you, bandaged freak ... Gvardiol."
Fixing my gaze on him, my eyes blazed with a violet glow.
"Ever since we entered the Shizclar Bay, I’ve been tracking everything .. your army of 35,000 men, the presence of the Hollows and the Lords, even the nightmare creatures you hid in the depths."
They all stared at me in disbelief, especially when I gave the exact number of their forces.
"But you, half-demon... I never sensed your Aura, never heard your breath, not even the beat of your heart. It was as if you didn’t exist at all. Before we begin, I have to ask... how did you do it?"
It was genuine curiosity. Gvardiol was the only one who surprised me .. because unlike the others, I couldn’t feel him.
During my training, I had honed my senses to perfection—to the point where I could detect anything within my domain.
For him to escape that meant he was hiding something. And indeed, he laughed in response.
"My heartbeat? My breath? You’re truly insane, Lord Starlight. To go that far... what kind of senses do you even have?"
With a filthy smile, Gvardiol ripped away the black bandages covering his chest, revealing a grotesquely mutated body leaking foul black fluid, with gray skin riddled in deep, unnatural holes.
What lay within those holes wasn’t flesh or blood .. but rot and corruption.
"You’re right, Lord Starlight. I have no pulse, no breath. I’ve been dead for a long, long time."
He laughed as his body erupted with a massive Shadow Aura.
"As for my Aura, I simply suppressed it with a skill I possess. That’s why you couldn’t sense me. There. Are you happy now?"
Hearing his answer, I nodded.
"I see... Impressive, really."
"Well, you’re going to die anyway, so no harm in granting one of your last wishes, right?"
He was absolutely convinced he had me cornered.
"I told you earlier—you’re misunderstanding something."
I placed my right hand on Snow’s shoulder... and my left on Bloodmader’s.
The smile on my face deepened.
"These two... they came here as emissaries. For a conversation."
With a snap of my fingers, Snow and Bloodmader vanished from the platform in an instant .. leaving me alone with the enemy.
Back aboard the ship, neither of them understood how they had returned—completely unaware of my teleportation ability.
And after sending them away, I slowly lowered my arms ..then spread them wide, facing my foes.
"As for me... I came here for one reason, and one reason only."
At that moment—those words—
The world darkened.
The void trembled.
And the nightmare creatures screamed in terror.
The expressions on the Ultras’ elite turned to horror.
Releasing my Aura, I finally drew my swords, letting loose the bloodlust I had kept buried until now.
"I came here today... to slaughter every last one of you!"
"And I’m starting with you, bastard who killed Danzo!!"
My hysterical scream .. laced with overwhelming killing intent .. left the Ultras unable to react. They realized, far too late, that their entire plan... had been effortlessly obliterated by a single man.
"That Aura... this cursed Aura..."
Staring at me in disbelief, Gavid Lindman couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing.
"How?! How in the hell is his Aura beyond SS+?!"
What he felt wasn’t SS+...
It had surpassed it entirely .. reaching the mythical realm of SSS.
The three of them couldn’t make sense of it. But I didn’t give them the time to think.
One second I was in front of them ..
The next, I had vanished entirely.
With blades burning in merciless black Aura, I unleashed the full power I had gathered until now.
"Ten Thousand Steps of Shadow – Supreme art : Abyssal Wave!"
I didn’t have the luxury of fighting the nightmare creatures and the Ultras one by one...
So I made my choice ..
I would annihilate them all in a single strike.
An all-out assault ...
The unleashed peak of the Ten Thousand Steps of Shadow...
Abyssal Wave.
The impact was devastating. Using pure Shadow Aura, I tore through everything in the battlefield ..ripping apart the nightmare creatures, the waves, the very land itself... and even the Ultras’ elite ..all in one blow.
Shadow slashes appeared out of nowhere, tearing through everything in their path.
Within seconds, the sea turned crimson with blood. Those once-mighty beasts that ruled the ocean screamed as they fell ..one after another .. slaughtered by my overwhelming strike.
And the moment I cleared the battlefield of those nightmarish abominations ..
I surged forward, riding a dark meteor, charging straight at Gvardiol, who was still struggling to comprehend what had just happened.
But Gavid Lindman reacted instantly, rushing to his side as soon as he saw me coming.
Grasping the Aether , ready for battle...
But it didn’t matter.
I had been prepared to face all of them .. from the start.
"Ten Thousand Steps of Shadow – Supreme Art : Void Carving!"
With a dual slash of my blades, I released a colossal wave of dark Aura .. a devastating tide that shattered the entire platform and buried the Lords of the Ultras deep within the boiling depths of the demonic sea, which evaporated under the sheer pressure.
And as I tore through my enemies ..
I laughed.
Like a madman.
"Finally..."
At long last, I could release it.
The power I had built.
The emotions I had buried.
"I can let it all out now!"
I didn’t have to hold back anymore.
Not here ..
Not on this battlefield.
Here... I could finally kill them.
"I can finally kill all those bastard sons of whores."
In that moment ...
It had officially begun.
The first battle... of the War of Darkness.